All About Klout

Did you know that as a blogger, you’re uniquely positioned to influence not only your readers, but entire social networks as well? Every item you publish has the potential to be seen not only by people who visit your website, but by countless others as it is shared across the blogosphere. As a result, measuring online influence has become big business and a growing number of companies now specialize in providing individuals and businesses with these metrics. Today I’d like to introduce you to the leader in the field – Klout.

CEO Joe Fernandez founded Klout in 2008 to measure online influence across a variety of social networks. Klout analyzes data in the public domain to derive Klout Scores – meaning, you may be one of over 100 million people that has a Klout Score, whether you know it or not!

Klout likens these scores to social media credit scores and a growing number of companies now take Klout Scores into consideration when making business decisions! For instance, Waterbrook Multnomah recently announced plans to use Klout scores as a major factor in determining how books were allocated in their blogger book review program.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Klout – and those trying to gain a better understanding of how Klout works – here are ten things you need to know to understand how Klout works!

Ten Things You Need To Know About Klout

1. Klout defines influence as your ability to drive action across networks in various topics. They measure success by the degree to which people respond to you. For instance, Klout considers a person with 100 followers and a highly engaged audience more influential than a person with 1000 followers and no interaction.

2. Klout assigns you a score from 1 (low) to 100 (high) based on your level of influence. Based on their scale, the average Klout Score is 20 – not 50. If you score above 40, you are considered highly influential on Klout! Only one person – Justin Bieber – has a perfect score (100)!

3. Your Klout Score is comprised of three components:

True Reach – The number of people you influence

Amplification – The degree to which you influence them

Network Score – How influential the people in your network are

Since Klout updates occur daily, you may see minor fluctuations in your score based on current activity. You may see more signicant changes from time to time when Klout fine tunes its proprietary algorithms.

4. Klout evaluates how you communicate on social media and places you into one of 16 Klout Style categories, which may change over time as your Klout Score and communication style changes. Bloggers with identical scores can have different Klout Styles.

5. Klout believes you influence others topically and over time, assigns up to 20 Topics it believes you are influential in. If you disagree with its assessment, you have the ability to delete that topic from your profile. If you are influential in Klout, you also have the ability to choose the topics you are influential in. A person with a lower Klout score but with expertise in a particular topic wields greater influence in an area than a person with a high overall Klout score who lacks topical expertise.

6. Klout users have the ability to award +K to users it believes have topical influence. While awarding someone a +K does not currently affect their overall Klout score (it may in the future) it DOES impact the level of influence they have in the topic (low, medium, high, or strong), which is used in determining eligibility for Klout Perks.

7. Klout recognizes the Top 10 Influencers in key topics and the Top 100 +K Recipients in a topic during the past 90 days by awarding them Gold and/or Blue Sashes on their Klout badges. If you are in the Top 5, you are featured at the top of the Topic Page!

8. Another nice feature of Klout is that as your score grows, you may be eligible for Klout Perks! Klout Perks are exclusive experiences or products, offered to select Klout members, based on a variety of factors, including Klout Scores, Topics and sometimes Location. Klout Perks, when offered, are available in limited quantities – you can choose the ones you want to participate in!

9. You can use Klout to track your social influence across a variety of networks. Currently, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Foursquare activity counts towards your Klout score. Klout allows you to connect a number of additional networks, but those networks don’t currently influence your Klout score.

10. Additional features on Klout include Achievement Awards, the ability to create lists, and the ability to monitor who you influence – and who influences you – based on your personal interactions across your networks.

Now that you know a little more about Klout, what do you think?

Does the concept of scoring online influence and its implications excite you, scare you, or intrigue you?

If you’re a current Klout user, has your experience with Klout been positive, negative or mixed?

If you are new to Klout, will you be opening an account to see what your Klout score is?

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137 Responses to “All About Klout”

I guess I am more intrigued by the concept of Klout, I find it interesting the way it all works and way our scores and topics are derived. It is always a sinking feeling when you long on to find your score has dropped though.

I’ve never heard of Klout before – but is sounds really interesting! It’s hard to measure how your blog is doing – and this is a little different to google analytics or page ranking! I’d be curious to sign up and see how my blogs reflect in this! Thanks for sharing this!

Honestly; Klout scares and intrigues me. I will hopefully take the time to look into it more (I put it on my computer “to do” list). I would like to be more influential as a blogger, that’s one of my main reasons for blogging, to help others! Thanks for the heads up.

I have not heard of Klout, so this is interesting to me. I bet I have a low score, though (!), so it’s something to keep in mind and be aware of as I try and grow my blog, but not something I think I want to check out right away. It’s like if you know you’re too short to be a supermodel, why show up at a modeling agency?! Ha!

Very funny comment about being a supermodel! Here’s the thing about Klout. If you are only blogging right now and not on any other social media accounts – don’t worry about it, just be aware that it exists. If you ARE on one of the accounts it is connected to, it doesn’t hurt to check your score to see if you are being tracked. IF you are not very active on your social media accounts, your score is probably low and that’s ok if it is not something you’re focused on at the moment. If you are active, you may have a higher score and topical Klout without even realizing it (which is VERY cool to discover!) BUT – your Klout score increases and decreases based on what you are doing on elsewhere anyway. Develop and maintain good blogging habits and when you’re ready to explore Klout you will be positioned to fully benefit from it! 🙂

Several months ago, I heard about Klout and signed up. I never really “got it” but I’d check in occasionally. I just checked in and have gone up, which feels nice. But it does feel a bit uneasy since I really don’t fully understand it. But because of you, I went and linked a couple other networks on (even if they don’t count just yet). I kinda wished Pinterest was on there…maybe that will come later?

This is very useful information, although it’s somewhat intimidating to realize there is yet another social media-ish service that I should participate in to promote my blog. I’m debating whether it’s worth my time to participate, or whether I should just focus on writing good content. Thoughts?
-Viva, from dailycitron.com

Hi Viva, this is a great question! I think that first of all, whether you choose to actively work on increasing your Klout score or not, it’s important for everyone who blogs or is involved in social media to know that this DOES exist, since over time, your blogging goals may change and your scores CAN impact the opportunities that come your way.

Second, I believe first and foremost that if you blog, the most important thing you should be doing is focusing on producing quality content on your blog. It doesn’t matter what you do to market yourself – if a thousand people visit your blog and they don’t like what they see – they won’t come back for seconds.

Now – if you blog as a hobby or for purely personal reasons – worrying about Klout isn’t really a big deal. If you blog for business purposes, you need to familiarize yourself with all of the key metrics (which includes Klout) because companies use these to determine whether they want to work with you or not – and each company uses different criteria. Some of the more popular metrics that companies use include Google Page Rank, Alexa, and increasingly, Klout.

If you fall somewhere in between – then you have to decide whether or not it’s important to you. Some people like metrics as a mean of tracking how their activity pays off in different areas. Some people like getting perks. Some people deplore Klout and what it stands for.

If you are new to blogging – don’t stress about Klout – focus on the basics of blogging. If you are a little more advanced – i.e., you’re on Twitter, Facebook and some of the other networks that Klout tracks – it doesn’t hurt to sign up for an account and learn a little more about it. As I said, you may already have a Klout Score even if you don’t have an account – which means that people who are on Klout can see this information about you. For me, if it’s out there – I want to know what others are looking at!

Yes, that is how Klout describes the scores and for some companies and businesses they DO make a difference – perks are provided for people with higher scores – in certain jobs one’s social media influence and score might factor in – but obviously, only in certain circles. There are other companies that provide these metrics as well but Klout is the forerunner. They (and the entire concept of quantifying online influence) are not without their critics either. I’m glad I could make you aware of Klout!

I’ve been using Klout for awhile now, and have received a fair amount of perks. Until I read this though, I didn’t fully understand how it worked. Thanks so much!! I’m off to check out my Klout again 🙂

Thanks, Tony, for stopping by! Yes, Klout has gone through a lot of changes and has reaped the public ire for it!

For those of you who are wondering what Tony is referring to, last fall, Klout changed their alogriths, which resulted in most people’s Klout scores dropping 10 points on average (contrary to what they claimed). From all appearances, most bloggers were affected (ordinary people) while celebrities were not. As you might well imagine, this did not pan out well in the social media environment where a lot of people rely on these scores and an “occupy Klout” movement began.

As a result of all of the negative publicity though, some positive changes have occurred… such as the fact that you can now opt out of Klout. It’s also given rise to competitors like Kred who take transparency extremely seriously.

This is the first I have heard of Klout. It sounds interesting but Im not sure I want to know how many people are NOT visiting my blog.
p.s the modeling thing really did happen to me. When I was 19 and going around to different modeling agencies in L.A. One of them told me I was too short. (if they had told me I was too fat I could’ve lost weight) but I figured there was nothing I could do about my height 🙂

I feel your modeling pain – at my height, my only prospects at 19 would have been to be a ring model, lol!

Klout does not tell you how many people are or aren’t visiting your blog (there are other metrics for that). Klout purports to measure how influential you are on social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The connection between those networks and your blog is that frequently, bloggers share their posts on social media networks and then, in turn, those posts have the potential to be shared by other people on those networks… see the difference? So – if you are influential on Twitter or Facebook, for instance, and you use those networks to promote your blog – you may see additional traffic to your blog because your posts are promoted their – but in regards to Klout – your score will rise or fall based on how active you are on those networks and whether or not people respond to you there (interact with you, comment, like, retweet, etc) – not on how much traffic you get on your blog!

I stopped by your Topics page to see why you haven’t received any Perks. First, be sure you check the Perks page daily if this is something you are interested in – although they are starting to implement notifications – I don’t fully trust that the system is 100 percent reliable yet.

Next while your 40s score is good – each brand sets their own criteria for perks – and certain topics seem to generate more perks. Right now, You have Health added as a new Topic but your Influence is low in that area because you have no +Ks. If you can boost that topic to a Medium level of influence – that is a topic that will generate perks from time to time. There are also certain scoring points that seem to be good marks to aim for in re: to Perks – sometimes they don’t matter – but sometimes they will be set to above 45 or 50 (sometimes higher) for the best perks. So for someone like you – who is so close – it may be worth your while to work on your Klout for a few extra points. Also – I didn’t check your account for this – but I have heard that if you connect multiple networks – that will frequently help you boost your Klout score. I can’t attest to this however because I’m only connected through one connected Klout Network.

I am aware of Klout, but it isn’t something I put a lot of weight or focus on. I understand that it can become a more important aspect depending on your niche and your need for a relationship with PR firms.

Thanks for stopping by! I agree that it’s most important to those who are involved in social media, marketing, reviews/PR and the like… but even if you’re not, if you’re active in social media, it can be fun to track your scores and to get a perk every now and then!

If you’re not involved in those activities, though, it really doesn’t matter much. It’s just something to be aware of! 🙂

I’ve heard of Klout but never thought to learn about it. I am going on over there to sign up. I’m very interest and may become obsessed ~ this is all very exciting to me 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing this info 🙂

Hmm, I had never heard of Klout before. I’m not sure I will be joining though because though I am on the other social media networks like FB, Twitter, and Pinterest but not super active. I only post my blog postings on there but I mostly use it to get help for my blog. Maybe later, when I get a hang of my blogging and in maintenance mode, I may just sign up for one more thing! =P

I gave up (a bit) on Klout when my score was reduced from 58 to 44 without a reason from one day to the next. Then it turned out they had done that with lots of people and I just decided I didn’t care any more.

Well, actually, I do, a bit. On my twitter timeline I’ve installed a little something (can’t remember now where it came from) that shows what people’s klout scores are whenever they tweet something. That way I can sift the truly influential people from the pretenders. 🙂

Thanks for stopping by! I was pretty ticked off when the algorithms changed (I call it the Klout fiasco) – mainly because they tried to say that only a small percentage of users would be affected – when, in fact, every single person that I know – no matter how big or small – was impacted. I found the lack of transparency disturbing – but I hope that they learned a lesson from their PR fail and the subsequent aftermath. I do believe they are making some changes – if for no other reason than because of the publicity the aftermath generated.

If you operate on Firefox or Chrome, there are apps/extensions you can download that, on Twitter, will display the Klout scores of all of the users in your timeline next to their names when they appear. I also find it helpful for a number of reasons. If you are on Peer Index (which is similar to Klout but less prevalant) – they also have a similar extension on Firefox.

Thanks for stopping by! One of the reasons I find tracking Klout scores interesting (which is easily done if you install the Firefox/Chrome extentsions) is that you get a good sense of which companies effectively use social media and which ones don’t have a clue. I’m active on Twitter Parties and one of the things I find most surprising is that I have seen a few companies pay big bucks to host parties with top notch hosts -set up Twitter accounts specifically for the events – make a big deal to get people to follow them – and then, never tweet a single thing or follow back anyone after the event.

Peer Index and Kred are two newer companies who are also trying to gauge online social influence. They are not nearly as large or as well known as Klout at the moment. One of the things they are trying to do, though, is learn from Klout’s mistakes (when I say this, remember – Klout was the first to do this – so it’s a learning process for them too!) and be more transparent in what they do. So far I am particularly impressed with Kred in the area of transparency – they not only clearly tell you how they calculate your scores, but they SHOW you as well – and they give you the opportunity to receive “Kred” for you “real world” achievements if that is important to you!

I have had Klout for a while and have only just started paying attention to it, in fact seeing this made me scoot over there to find out that I have gone up from 47 to 49!! I never knew if that was even good, since most of my ppl were in teh 60s I didn’t think so thanks for this GREAT breakdown.

You’re welcome! The people that I follow who are in their 60s tend to be the social media gurus who are ALWAYS tweeting and who have zillions of followers! I consider them the celebrities of the “normal” people world, so to speak. If you’re in the high 40s, you’re active and doing quite well! 🙂

I do like the idea of measuring influence but then again Klout is not that accurate. I know bloggers that are very influential in a subject, it is their life, and they measure low on Klout. Maybe because they are not active on Google+ or Twitter. NOt sure but it just doesn’t make sense.

Also it will make you influential in strange things. I blog about blogging, WAHM and online income yet I am influential in oatmeal. Huh?

One last thing…Justin Bieber? They are giving him a perfect score? What are they trying to do here, get teenage girls to sign upi for Klout?

Thanks for your feedback Allie – totally agree with some of your comments – I just addressed some of the accuracy issues in a few of the previous comments – but wanted to mention that you should check out Kred – the new kid on the block – they are very interesting to compare because they are very transparent in showing you how they score you for EVERY action you take to calculate your influence in various areas – AND for those who are interested – you can earn credit for your “real life” credentials too!

Klout confuses me. I used to have a great score, then it dropped dramatically. I got frustrated, so I stopped looking at it. Now I figure I should try focusing on it again. Thanks for breaking it all down so nicely!

I’m glad my article helped! It sounds like the dramatic score drop you are referring to was probably part of the algorithmic change a few months ago that affected everyone. It WAS frustrating but with time and consistent efforts, your score will improve. One positive change I have noticed in the alogrithm is that the minor fluctions from day to day are much smaller than they used to be. Good luck! My Klout account is at the bottom of the article if you would like to connect! 🙂

So glad you stopped by! When I first joined I had HUGE technical difficulties with Klout – I could not link up at all at first – my first 2 weeks were so frustrating I tried to cancel out. Don’t know when you tried to do Facebook (recently or awhile ago) but I would try contacting Technical Support to see if they can help you with your issues. They finally helped me with mine but be aware that it did take several days to get a response/

Is it possible that you mentioned carnival in conjunction with one of your book reviews? In any event, remember, if you don’t like a topic, you can delete it from your Topics list – just look for the X. If no one has given you +K in the topic and it says your influence is low it should not impact your score. However – if you have Medium or above influence and lots of people have already awarded you +K – you may want to research the impact of this BEFORE you delete the topic.

Also – for those of you who are comment readers – when you DO give people +K – DO try to click on their topics page and +K them in the areas that make sense for them and their blogs, NOT just what appears at the top of the page. When I give +K, if I know the person, I do this and if I don’t, I read the description and +K them in their main categories and also go to the BOTTOM of the list (Where most people don’t) to see if there is any new topic they may want to build Klout in that others are overlooking. Again, this is strategic – you need Medium Klout to qualify for Perks and certain topics are more apt to give Perks than others – if I know this I try to boost people in those topics if I see that – as well as areas they are strong in and want to be. This helps others grow their blogs and their social media reputations organically and over time people WILL take notice of what you do and reciprocate that good will back to you!

So – if you visit Erin for example – look first for topics that relate to Books (Writing, Publishing, Amazon, E-Books, Authors, Reviews – don’t know what she has listed but these are examples) and give her Klout there – and AVOID strange topics like Carnival that really aren’t going to build the credibility that she is trying to attain! 🙂

This is a great article about Klout. I learned a few things I didn’t know about, like the Klout perks. I used to have a pretty good Klout rating, but then I had to stop using Twitter as often as I had been and it really fell. I need to get back into using it again. Thanks for putting this together for us, great job!

You’re so welcome! The Klout Perks are definitely worth looking into! Not all Perks are equal – I’ve seen a few that are pretty lame and a few that aren’t really perks at all but rather discounts – but I’ve also seen some really nice Perks offered! Hope that all of you who are looking into this are able to qualify for some nice Perks over time – it really brightens your day! 🙂

A score of 63 rocks – but part of what qualifies you for Perks is the areas that you have Topical Influence in. What I would suggest, for those of you who are interested in this, is to watch the Perks as they become available and even if you don’t qualify, click on them to see what the requirements are. Over time, you will see patterns emerge as to which categories seem to most frequently offer perks!

And I could not agree with you more – truly one of life’s greatest mysteries is how Justin – and only Justin – has a score of 100 bestowed upon him!

I’ve been on Klout for a while and while I don’t live or die by it, or check it every day (or even every week), I was a bit irritated when I dropped from 58 to 50 when they changed their algorithm. On the other hand, Klout says I’m influential in the Oscars, among a few other things I’ve *never* mentioned online, so who cares? LOL
I do list it on my site stats, because someone may actually care, but I do book reviews, and authors are pretty much just happy to get their books out there. I *am* a WaterBrook Press reviewer, though, so I was happy that my score is high enough to slide by in their new system. I just wish my WP self-hosted blog was part of my score like my Blogger blog was. But my posts are automatically tweeted and posted to fb, so it probably doesn’t matter.

I think Klout is like Twitter – they have grown so much that there system can’t keep up with it all. The system definitely is not perfect – I know when I first linked up they listed me as influential in Colorado for awhile – well I don’t recall ever writing or tweeting about Colorado prior to that! It took months before they figured that out and gave me another topic. Sometimes, though, if you go to a Twitter Party or respond to (retweet) someone who uses a hashtag – it’s possible to accidently pick up topical influence that way. I have also seen people with strange Klout Topics after doing a review on a certain item for instance that I know they don’t want to be known as “expert” on – but Klout somehow hones in on it and boom! It’s on their page!

I’m so happy that my score is now back above 50 (again) for Waterbrook purposes (although I am not of their system anyway). I also wish self-hosted WP blogs were included in the Klout calculations (I feel like none of my stuff except Twitter counts) but I guess that would be a nightmare to arrange, logistically!

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